Response to Wall Street Journal article

I've gotten pretty out of hand recently with emailing political pundits with whom I disagree. I was about to type "reporters" instead of "pundits," but then I remembered the pieces that have irked me toward hate mail haven't exactly come from credible journalists (I'm looking in your direction, Rick Santorum).

Tonight, I read this Obama hit piece in the Wall Street Journal by Kimberley A. Strassel. I find her writing consistently despicable, as have others. She makes broad-stroke blasts against the Wall Street Journal editorial board too easy.

After reading her piece, I immediately tried to send her an email detailing why I thought her column was flawed, but the address listed at the end of her op-ed (kim@wsj.com) came back in error twice. Let readers voice their opinions by leaving a faulty email address at the end of your piece -- real classy, Kim.

Well, here is the email I tried to send her. In order to comprehend it, you may have to read her piece first. I apologize for making you do that. I hope she Googles herself sometime soon and reads this.

1) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a "dictator," as you claim in your article against Obama. I know a lot of political pundits REALLY want him to be one, but, I'm sorry, he's not. If you knew anything about the Iranian government, you'd know Ahmadinejad actually doesn't possess much power. The country is an Islamic Republic that is led by a supreme leader. "President" is a bit of a misnomer. Those gung ho for a war with Iran, however, have tried their hardest to convince the world that Ahmadinejad has the power to launch nukes at any second. Make no mistake: Ahmadinejad is an idiot, but he's also an incredibly potent propaganda pin-up for a war with Iran. He's just such an easy target, with his history of indefensible statements. But he's not a dictator. Nothing even close. It's very irresponsible to trump up such an idea, unless, of course, you're hoping to scrape up justification for a military strike in Iran.

2) Your dig at the "wonderfully revealing moment" is just dumb. Give me a fucking break. You're actually arguing that Bush was NOT talking about Democrats? You're really going to make that argument? You're free to make it, but don't be surprised if every journalist in the country disagrees with you.

3) Like many like-minded writers on this issue, you abstractly argue that to speak with a rogue leader is to legitimize him. What does that actually mean? New York conservatives had a fit last year when Lee Bollinger "legitimized" Ahmadinejad at Columbia University. But did he really "legitimize" anyone? Here's what I saw happen: Bollinger gave Ahmadinejad a microphone, and the President used the forum to unambiguously embarrass himself. No one legitimized anyone. Remember the play his words about gays in Iran got? How on earth did that legitimize him? If anything, it offered the world another glimpse of a petty president and his ploys to gain international attention.

So, nice try. You'll have many more months, though, to craft new, improved Obama hit pieces. Feel free. We're not buying them, especially when their rooted in jingoistic falsehoods (see point 1), disingenuous arguments (point 2), and anti-speech conservative ideology (point 3).

Do any of my points register or seem reasonable, or are they all brush-off worthy?